2018:790 - BALTINGLASS: Rathcoran House, Church Hill, Wicklow

Test trenching took place at Rathcoran House (St Joseph’s Convent), Baltinglass, County Wicklow. on behalf of Bealavon Ltd on 20 December 2018. The site is within the constraint area for Baltinglass Historic Town (WI027-024).

The test trenches were excavated by a 16-tonne tracked machine using a flat grading bucket and two archaeological areas were identified.

Area 1 is located adjacent to and 5m west of Rathcoran House and is located between two modern linear parallel ditches in an area measuring 3m east-west by 5m. It comprises four features, F1–F4, which appears to be pits/post-holes.

Archaeological Area 2 is located at the south-east extent of the development.  An isolated feature, F5, comprises a large sub-rectangular pit, north-west to south-east aligned and measuring 3m in length and 2.2m in width. A narrow slot excavated through the pit indicates a depth of at least 0.25m. Iron bloom was visible around all the edges of the cut indicating that this was possibly an iron-smelting pit. The uppermost fill of the pit was a yellow silty clay, a re-deposited natural which contained moderate charcoal-flecking inclusions. This uppermost fill may represent the collapsed sides of the smelting pit.

All of these features were subsequently excavated and post-excavation analysis is ongoing.